The AroRuPri Inn

Despite being a lot warmer than the north, Ui had to close the window in her room at the AroRuPri inn. As strong as her body was, the nighttime winter chill was too much for her.

Once she was done eating she opened her drawer to see the Duke’s letter. She touched it, but the longer she held on to it, the more she felt like she wasn’t deserving of being the person that the Duke admired. Ui slowly realized that the Duke, and maybe everyone in the capital, was in danger, and she didn’t have time for such thoughts. She closed the drawer and was determined to find out what had happened that made her end up in that inn, far away from everyone.

She picked up the empty trays and confidently hopped down the stairs.

The entrance of the inn was a lot livelier than when she first walked in with Prishu. The environment at night resembled a Uman pub: there was drinking, eating and even singing. Ui stood at the foot of the stairs, perplexed by the nighttime transformation.

As soon as Aro noticed her, he walked towards her and grabbed her empty trays. “I told you it would be lively!” He smiled at her while he cheerfully took the trays behind the bar to clean them, humming a song along with the patrons. Ui noticed that the Uman who had dropped the trays of food for her was standing next to Aro, wiping down glasses and cups. “I see you’ve met our brother, Ruitt.”

“Ruitt…” Ui repeated his name while feeling ashamed about their earlier interaction.

“Ruitt, be nice,” said Aro. Ruitt looked at both of them briefly before getting back to work. “...Anyway that’s all of us. Aro Ruitt Prishu. Welcome to the AroRuPri inn!”

“Oh… so that’s where it came from.” Ui felt dumb for taking so long to realize, and Ruitt’s cold demeanor towards her wasn’t helping. But she was a guest at their inn, one they were treating very kindly, so she didn’t want to disturb Ruitt despite his rudeness.

Aro welcomed Ui at the bar, and she sat down facing the brothers. “What can we get you, honored guest?” Aro started listing all of his drinks, but Ui already knew what she wanted.

“Do you have Olla tea?”

“Someone wants to stay awake all night.” Aro immediately started steeping some leaves. “I didn’t know you had that kind of schedule.”

“Well, I just woke up…” Ui wasn’t proud of the sleeping habits that had been following her through the whole island.

“You’ll fit right in, then.” Aro handed Ui her tea, who took a few sips before deciding to wait for it to cool down. Her choice of drink complicated things, too, as it only reminded her of the Udari of the north, and what she had done…

“Is there any news… from the capital, or Nallient?” asked Ui.

Aro looked at her, confused. “No, did something happen?”

Ui remained quiet, not wanting to reveal something Prishu hadn’t.

“So that’s why our sister was acting so strange…” Aro looked at Ui in a way that felt reassuring. “My sister doesn’t worry me. I’m sure you know how strong she is.” Aro kept working, just like he usually did. “If anything happens, it will take a couple of days for news to arrive here, anyway.”

“If they’re even public. It could be shady Royal Mage business…” Ruitt added.

Ui sipped her tea, with the news delay reminding her how far she was from everyone. She looked behind her, noticing the tables were full, and Aro and Ruitt had no one else to help them. As soon as she realized how busy they were, she couldn’t enjoy her tea without guilt. “Can I help you? Maybe I can… earn my stay here.”

Aro looked at Ruitt for a second and started laughing. “No, no. It’s always like this, don’t worry.”

“You can take the drinks out as they come. I’m sure they’ll enjoy it,” said Ruitt without hesitation. Aro was quick to elbow him back into his duties.

“That won’t be necessary, don’t worry.” Aro smiled before getting back to work.

But to Ui, the place looked too busy for her to feel comfortable. Staying in her room alone with her thoughts was not an option, either. “I worked at a mussa cart, I can make mussas and serve drinks...”

“The aprons are in that drawer.” Ruitt pointed. “Here’s a quick map of our tables, and take a quick look at the menu.”

Aro sighed, realizing Ui wouldn’t quit no matter what he said. “Just take it easy, alright? I don’t want my sister to think we made you do this. She’ll kill me.”

While Ruitt didn’t help Ui, Aro was a lot more willing to help her ferry drinks around and carry dishes. While at first he seemed hesitant to let her help, at some point during the night he seemed very happy with Ui’s work, enough for him to let her work on her own.

At one point she walked up to a table with three men drinking. She left their drinks and tried to sneak away unnoticed.

“Hey, girl,” said one of the men. She’d been caught. “We’ve never seen you around here. Are you a friend of Aro’s.” Ui froze, unsure how to interact with them.

“Welcome to the inn, girl. You sure beat the grumpy waiter over there.” The three men pointed at Ruitt and laughed mockingly, very loudly.

“A pink hair Udari… that’s rare,” said the third man drinking at the table.

Ui bowed and walked away from the table awkwardly. She walked towards the bar and waited for her next order while she overheard the men.

“Why did you have to scare the new girl like that you idiot?” She heard one of the men slap the other playfully.

“You said to be welcoming.”

“And what kind of weird welcome is pointing out people’s hair color.”

“There’s an old Udari story about pink hair… that’s it. Why do you have to make it weird?”

“What about it, idiot?” Both men laughed at the man who noticed Ui’s pink hair.

The thought of the three men fighting each other because of her presence made her uncomfortable, but her embarrassment turned to dread just a few words later, as both of the men that didn’t comment about her hair started arguing.

“They say Lullaby has pink hair.”

“Lullaby? Really? What’s the big deal with that girl?”

“That girl represents everything the Udari and this town stand for, idiot.”

Ui couldn’t help but feel proud that someone would be willing to call out others for her reputation's sake, and she felt deserving of such high praise. She tilted her head downwards trying to hide her grin.

“Oh yeah? Well I think we’d be better off without her.”

Ui’s face turned into disgust as one of the men argued bitterly against Lullaby’s results. She clenched her fists and imagined herself confronting the man that disagreed with her.

“Are you dumb? Without her we wouldn’t be around, nor this city.”

“And all the people that she hurt?”

“There’d be a lot more hurting if she wasn’t around.”

The argument between the three men escalated in volume and they got increasingly physical. Suddenly their argument was all that was heard at the pub. The verbal duel only ended once Ruitt intervened.

“You’re disturbing the other customers. Please keep it down or retire yourself from our inn,” said Ruitt coldly without raising his voice.

The trio dismissed Ruitt on the surface, but went back to their drinks and talked in a much more normal volume as the rest of the pub’s lively environment returned.

Ruitt walked towards Ui once everything had settled back to normal. “You’re more trouble than worth, perhaps you should go back to your room.”

“Don’t worry Ui, we got this.” Aro’s smile succeeded in making Ui feel better. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”

Ui, with a mixture of pride and guilt from what had transpired, dragged herself up to her room, and into the bed once more.